Tuesday, September 03, 2013

Declaring a War on Terror

American military strategies have tried, really tried, to focus the war on terror against the Al Qaeda extremists in their hide outs among tribes in developing nations, like Afghanistan and Pakistan. Yet, in spite of billions of dollars spent on this effort, while countless lives have been lost, our nation's overall efforts to protect our national security against future attacks has not advanced much. We've protected our nation against some follow up attacks, we don't know how many were foiled, but our national security still remains fragile.In other words, we obviously have not yet won the war on terror. Maybe, this failure to win is because a War on Terror has never been declared. Now, the world is faced with yet another conflict in Syria that, if left unresolved, will create, either, a change of regime that could be worse than the reign of terror now being waged by President Al Assad, or a humanitarian disaster of unparalleled proportions. Maybe, both events will, unbelievably, happen concurrently. In which case, our world wide undeclared war on terror will continue to be fed by the carcasses of the collapse of Syria. At least, that's how I see it.Americans witnessed the horror of the September 11, 2001, attacks on our country, but a formal war was never declared.

In spite of the three terrorists attacks, led by their ring leader, the Egyptian born Mohamed Atta, on the Twin Towers at New York City's World Trade Center, coupled with the deliberate crash of United Airlines Flight 93 in Pennsylvania, and the crash of American Airlines Flight 77 on the Pentagon in Washington, DC, most Americans have yet to experience the sacrifice of living in a nation at war. Indeed, these brazen and evil attacks on our country caused a retribution against the terrorist networks led by Al Qaeda, leading, eventually, to the bold killing of Osama Bin Laden in Abbottobad, Pakistan. Nevertheless, there's no declared war to end the zealous networks of extremists feeding off of the unjustifiable passion for killing innocent people, especially Americans. Now, Americans are on the threshold of yet another Middle East conflict, this time in Syria. Another dictator, different name, same tyranny, named Bashar Al-Assad. This is a man whose days are numbered, regardless of how the Syrian carnage called a civil war plays out. Syrian President Al Assad can't possibly retain control of his country when many millions of his people are living in refugee camps outside of his nation's borders, while he sprays innocents inside his country with Sarin poison gas.Al Assad has lost his mind. He never should've sprayed his people with Sarin poison gas, especially hundreds of innocent children.Obviously, I'm not a foreign policy expert; moreover, I have absolutely no experience in international diplomacy. But, this is my blog; so it's the world as I see it - "this way", according to me:

America has never declared a War on Terror. Why?

Meanwhile, our nation has experienced a litany of terrible attacks on our way of life, both within our own nation and, especially, abroad. These attacks may have started in 1993, in the Reagan administration, with the Beirut attack on the Marine barracks in Lebanon; maybe, even before then.

Now, because we never declared a War on Terror, America and our allies haven't been able to resolve conflicts where our nation's security are at risk. As time goes on, our nation and allies are perceived as vulnerable, because we can't overcome the forces that want to destroy our way of life.

Of course, Syrian President Al-Assad isn't currently threatening the US. Instead, he's fighting to retain leadership, all the while, his days are numbered, regardless of the outcome of the civil war he's obviously unable to resolve. The leader who comes after Al-Assad- and there will be a leader after him - may be even worse, especially if the pro-government forces remove him from power because of ineptness.

If America doesn't do something definitive to help the victims of this Syrian Civil War, our credibility as a world leader will erode even more than it has already. As a result, terrorism will spread, because it can intimidate our national resolve to fight.

In fact, I wonder if Al-Assad would have dared to use poison gas against his own people, if he perceived the threat from President Obama to "draw a line in the sand" about using weapons of mass destruction, as being serious.

Therefore, in an inverse correlation, if Al Assad prevails and his terror increases, our nation's credibility will be diminished. As a result, the threat of world wide terrorism will expand even further, because that's how evil works. Evil is something like carbon monoxide, it will fill the world unless civilized nations open up the environment to the expansion of oxygen.

Al Assad used Sarin gas on civilians and this evil act must be addressed; it's just inconceivable for any human being to do this.

Al Assad now joins a demonic historic line up, with the Germans in World War I, Adolf Hitler in World War II and Saddam Hussein in Iraq, a demonic line up.

Frankly, the civilized world must once and for all declare a War on Terror, define it, fight it and win it. Similar to how Allies after World War II recreated Western Europe, the world must take the same strategy against Al Qaeda and all terrorism.

By doing nothing to intervene in Syria, the terrorism networks will feed on the inaction to fuel their growing networks of groups that want to destroy civilization as we know it.